the homebrew blogtrain

[MadJohnShaft]

It's still young and refusing to carbonate, I will keep putting the pressure on.

Okay, I am ready to switch to all grain.  I'm set up to do it stovetop. I will probably mash inside oven and do two 2 1/2 gallon runs and combine them together before fermenting.

If I upgrade I need a bigger boiling pot that can hold the whole 5 gallons at once- and I need something to Sparge in. For now I guess I'll just put the grains in 170° water for 10 minutes to do the sparging.


Two runs:
5 pounds of grain.
2.5 gallons of water
Mash for an hour at 153 degrees
Pour off into another bucket
Sparge with 1.5 gallons of water at 170° for 10 minutes

[Volume]

I do the sparging and mashing in the same pot.

[MadJohnShaft]

Do you have a false bottom draining apparatus for sparging? TWSS.  I can do the mashing process easily I do that now for partial grain.

I think I need a big steel 7-8 gallon pot to boil a 5 gallon batch, with a spigot. I have one of those half barrel things but it doesn't fit on my stove because it is too tall. TWSS..

The sparging part of the process is okay to do like a big tea bag? TWSS.



There are online calculators for the correct temperature for the mashing water - if you want to hit 153 you can determine what temperature to heat your hot water ....

I got this.

[Volume]

It's a 6.6gal pot with a tap, I heat it on the kitchen stove. I rigged a strainer in front of the tap so it wouldn't clogg, it kinda worked. Haha. Now I've bought a bazooka tube/strainer thingie to hook up to the tap, should work out great. I fly sparge, kinda. I just heat up some water an pour it over the mash through a strainer. I need to work on that part of the process, it's a bit too time consuming.

[NCR600]

What you need MJS, is an 8-10 gallon electric urn. Look up BIAB (Brew in a Bag) on the internets. You basically heat up your water using one of those online calculator things to get the right temp, dump a bag filled with grain in, wrap it in an old sleeping bag and leave it for an hour. Then whip it out and start boiling. You could even sparge if you want to. I've taste lots of good beers made like this. It's how I started, and requires a minimum of equipment, but just enough to look impressive!

[MadJohnShaft]

#6 is good - it wasn't very good a few weeks ago so I put it on really high pressure for two weeks and now it's much better. I like it but I'm ready for all grain.




The mead is in a Korny in my fridge - I think the korny is not sealing properly because it isn't carbonating. It is okay but it can't get civilians to drink it. I may let it chill in the fridge for a few months.

Can I use it as a mixer? So much work.

[khoomeizhi]

new moon winter solstice. inspired by the long dark night to start another bochet (medieval style burnt honey mead), this time 5 gallons. previous batches have received rave reviews: black booze, until you look at just a little bit backlit and you see that it's a clear dark reddish chestnut brown. notes of caramel and burnt marshmallows. more retained sweetness than many of my meads (which tend towards dry) since the burning process renders some sugars unfermentable.

[MadJohnShaft]

Shoot whoot

Doing my first all grain 12lb of mash sitting in the oven doing its thing.

A local company started making yeast so I'm trying that. I clearly need one more 7 gal pot - is it is I need to dump wort around to use the one big pot to mash and Sparge.

[MadJohnShaft]

Woot!   This brewing blog is great - he's testing a lot of conventional wisdom with the idea to simplify.

http://brulosophy.com

[Volume]

Love that blog. Glad to hear you went all-grain, it's not that complicated. More to clean up maybe. You doing a BIAB or what?

I did a Chocolate-Cherry Imperial Stout for christmas, the first recipe I've made myself. It turned out way too sweet, but otherwise it's really promising. A few tweaks and I'll have a great brew for next christmas.

Edit: ABV was a bit over 9%

[MadJohnShaft]

Yeah BIAB - Pretty easy except for the mash/sparging needing to get done in the one big pot - i had to puzzle it out how to transfer the wort and water around.

I think I would sparge with more water next time to get a bigger yield - I didn't realize you could even do a no-sparge which I may do next time.

Putting the whole brew kettle in the oven to hold the temp for an hour worked fantastic.   That blog I listed had a big article about not  worrying about hot side aeration and also not to worry too much about excessive trub in the primary fermenter - and that there's no real reason to do a secondary fermenter. Which saves a ton of screwing around.

Next one I'm doing first wort hop and dry hopping.

[MadJohnShaft]

Anyone ever go to these homebrewers conferences? Sounds fun.

The 2015 conference will be held in San Diego, Calif. (with more details forthcoming).

http://www.ahaconference.org/conference/about/

[MadJohnShaft]

Doing another 5 gallon all grain this weekend, because I can.

Hey look it is supposed to be 10 52 and 8 hours into this project that's where we landed.




After hours and hours of boiling when I got it down to 5.25 gallons the specific gravity was spot on.

[Volume]

Looks good!

Putting the whole brew kettle in the oven to hold the temp for an hour worked fantastic.   That blog I listed had a big article about not  worrying about hot side aeration and also not to worry too much about excessive trub in the primary fermenter - and that there's no real reason to do a secondary fermenter. Which saves a ton of screwing around.

Next one I'm doing first wort hop and dry hopping.

I cut up an old sleeping mat and wrap that around the kettle for insulation. As for the trub, the siphon I use for bottling has a cap to filter it out, but I forgot to attach it. The beer had massive amounts of trub, but still turned out great. I've never used a secondary either, I just use a big plastic bucket. I've been thinking of getting a plastic carboy though, it would be nice to be able to see how the fermentation is progressing without opening the lid.

I have a bunch of spruce shoots in the freezer, might do a pale ale with those next.

[MadJohnShaft]

The guy at the HB store helped me fix the Hop amounts given in my recipe using an online calculator,  so I am going to start paying more attention to hops and yeast - I usually just wing it.



I've been reading about dry hopping experiments - you can buy a 12 of bud light (or something plain like sierra nevada pale ale) and put about 5-6 hop pellets in each one and recap - a good way to see what hops you like and compare them mixing and matching.

http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2013/03/dry-hopped-bud-light.html?m=1



Doing it for sure.


Update: Jan 17 - I cold crashed the #7 (my first all grain) in the fridge for a week, which is supposed to help settle out matters and clear the beer a bit more. Kegging it up today.




Question: My mead didn't turn out very tasty, I have it carbonated in that keg and I filled a few champagne bottles, adding cinnamon and cloves. Anything else I should try to fix it up?

[MadJohnShaft]

I was making some cranberries and stuck 4 tablespoons in a carafe of mead - after an hour it is delicious. I'm a bit worried the sugar will cause carbonation to turn on and blow up the champagne bottle so I'll let it sit for a day and then bottle a couple..

[khoomeizhi]

mead is frequently not very good soon after making it. aging is key. many don't start really coming into their own until a year or two after bottling. if you want to consume it sooner, then mess with masking it with extra flavors, acids, backsweetening, etc. otherwise my advice would be to bottle, stick in the basement, and forget about it for a while.

[khoomeizhi]

none of my older projects are finishing on 'schedule', so as i continue to start new batches (trying to keep up an average of starting a batch per month to keep the pipeline full), i'm starting to run out of space for active carboys. doesn't help that i scored another couple jugs of local apple cider that started fuzzin' up from work...good thing i bought all those extra carboys, though!

[MadJohnShaft]

Now I want a Keezer and a fermentation chamber

http://brulosophy.com/2014/04/08/a-slightly-less-simple-keezer-build/

[Volume]

I brewed an American Stout today, lots of hops and I'll probably add cocoa nibs too. The chilling is is driving me nuts though, I need one of those wort chillers. I should have just let it cool over night in stead of staying up late waiting.

[MadJohnShaft]

Dude, get a copper coiled immersion chiller, hook it up to a hose running cold water full blast and stir - cools down 5 gal of wort in a few minutes.

(don't get a plate one where the wort runs inside tubes - they are filthy and don't really work)

[Volume]

Yea, I need to get one of those and an oxygen pump. I pitched the yeast a bit too hot, it's fermenting in the basement now which is pretty cold so the temp is ok for now. I'll move it up if it gets too cold... need a fermentation chamber too. haha, my wife is already going nuts over all the equipment, grain and stuff.

[MadJohnShaft]

It's easy to overbuy and wind up with tons of shit you don't need, I recently slimmed down all my gear after reading this


http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/11/getting-started-if-i-knew-then-what-i-know-now/

[MadJohnShaft]

I went to the hardware store and the guy helped me pick out everything to build a MLT out off a Coleman cooler - made a 5 gallon all grain (my 3rd all grain) with it.

http://brulosophy.com/how-i-brew/diy-cooler-mlt/

Like one of these....




Also got some hardware to hook my immersion chiller up to the kitchen sink.

Both projects came out great and I'm very happy.

[khoomeizhi]

last night we did the last racking on a ground cherry mead. tasty. looks like it's gonna take a while to clear though.